dinsdag 8 oktober 2013

(posted this on the Gramophone forum, but no answers yet, so
try it here!)

Starting with a confession and a question;

As I hardly buy any CD's anymore, it has been more than two
years since I last bought a Gramophone magazine... Think it was june 2011, and
although I peeked once and a while on this forum, my connection with the
magazine was broken. But, since I discovered Spotify, the "need" for
a magazine like the Gramophone grew and... I bought the 2013 awards issue. The
combination of the Gramophone magazine and Spotify is like an "all you can
eat" ticket in a paistry shop... Not only in the reviews (not all
recordings are on Spotify *yet*), but also the advertisements make me hungry
and explorative... :-)

At the same time, there are many discussions about the
benefits (or rather, disadvantages) of Spotify for the music industry.
Surprisingly little on the effects it has on the Classical music industry,
except short shoutouts like:

Now, for my own understanding (and for the story below), a
question: Does anyone know if classical labels are payed "per track"?
Does a short Schumann piece from the Davidsbundlertanze earns a label the same
amount of money as a 25 minute Mahler track? Or is there an other arrangement
made for that?

-- --

In the early days of CD, large works were devided in
separate tracks, even "theme 1, theme 2 development" etc sections. If
Mahler of Bruckner symphonies are payed per track, that would be an interesting
extra income for classical labels, I guess... ;-)

But wait, did'nt Spotify pay *anything*, or way too less for
artists? And does nobody use Spotify for listening to classical music? Well,
yes and... no. It's interesting to look at the amount of plays a spotify artist
has had. Ok, someone like the now obcure pianist Pierre alain Volondat dit not
go above the 1000 plays so far for any of his tracks; but someone like Roland
Poitinen has some amazing amount of followers and track listenings...

Now note, and the label Bis does this quite cleverly, the
separate "tracks" come from different re-packagings on Spotify, each
with an own trigger to "lure" the listners to the same recording(s),
analog to what this article:

and not only for Mozart, also their Bach, Beethoven etc
collections let them earn a nice amout of income. And remember, it's not only
Spotify, but also comparable services like Deezer, Rhapsody etc and future
services like Google play music...

So, questions are,

1) do long tracks generate the same amount of money on
Spotify as short tracks?

PS, Spotify and web-streaming services do not nessicarily
have to "replace" other ways of listening to recorded music (over
1000 CD's I'm not throwing away!!), but can be a new way to explore music....

maandag 30 september 2013

For some reason,
artists can become “much collected” artists. Remarkable life story, scarcity of
records made, a record company more interested in fast bucks rather than taking
care of their legacy (hello EMI :-) and voilà, people are willing to pay a
small fortune for an original recording of that artist. Especially if it’s
someone with a distinctive own voice and performance style.

“All of the above"
cumulate in the Italian violinist Gioconda de Vito.

De Vito, born in
1907, started playing music on the mandolin, but quickly transferred to the
violin.

Although she was
almost kicked out for being unable to carry a tune in singing (!), she studied
at the Pesaro conservatory and the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

In 1932 she won
the International Violin Competition in Vienna, but did not ambition a big
international career. Instead, she became a teacher at the St. Cecilia
Conservatory of Bari.

When she finally
decided to record some of her repertoire (something she would

be reluctant her
whole career, rare-vinyl record dealers bless her for ever about this...!)

she went to London
and.... fell in love with David Bicknell, director of HMV division of EMI
Records.

They married in
1949 and Gioconda de Vito thus acquired British citizenship.

In 1961, she
decided it was enough, and devoted her life to housekeeping.

As a true
Catholic, she found this role far more suited for her then her occupation on

the violin. Even a
a plea from the Pope (!), for which she had regularly performed,

could not help.
Gioconda de Vito died in 1994. Her unique, personal voice shines

through the noise
of the 78RPM, which I have put on youtube. Glimpse of the record (and actual
transfer of the record) are visible too in this video. Hope you will enjoy it!!

When I walked, one late evening, in a park near my
house, I heard these lines being chanted cheerfully in my headphones… It was a
couple of weeks ago and the Netherlands just had faced one of the longest
winters in modern history. Smell of grass and blossom filled my nostrils and
the sense that this Game-of-Thrones-like winter was gone and that we now had
six or seven years of summer ahead, fulfilled me with a sense of joy. “Denn siehe, der Winter is vergangen” was a
line from Heinrich Schütz’s two-choired motet “Stehe auf, meine Freundin” that I had acquainted from the Dutch Public
radio.

Schütz primarily worked in Dresden, during the time of
the Thirty Years War. What is now called Germany was at that time a horrid and apocalyptic
place. Large parts of the country were literally depopulated. Estimates assume
that about one third of the German population died due to the war conditions and
as a consequence Schütz often wrote his pieces for a small ensemble. Musicians were
forced to be soldiers and instruments were replaced by weapons… A double choir
must have been an incredible luxury at that time... This Schütz motet was
performed in 2007 live, by the Dutch Bach Society as part of a 17/18th century
vocal music program at the festival of old music in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Hope
you will enjoy it as much as I did.! :-)